Audiobooks Unleashed is a year old YouTube channel of about 500 recordings all taken from LibriVox without credit to either LibriVox or the individual readers, whose voices are often pitch shifted. When a commenter made the point that it would be only fair to acknowledge the narrators, who spend hours recording and editing their recordings, the Audiobooks Unleashed owner commented that they were not identified because "it seems like a pointless distraction from the stories, and I doubt they care anyway...No narrator ever complained to me."

Well, here's one narrator who has complained in the comments section of his recordings, and if more of those whose recordings have been used would do so, maybe the Audiobooks Unleashed owner would do the right thing!

Winston

Be kind. Be interesting. Be useful. Morality ain't hard.--Jack Butler, Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock

That is what PD means - anyone can use them without acknowledgement. Are they the ones who take my coverart and stretch it horizontally ? I'd sooner they spent any spare time they have using it properly - I hate seeing it all distoerted

They have lots of LV, in particular I note Karen Savage's reading of Pride and Prejudice, the DR of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and Bob Neufeld's reading of "Treasure Island" - I don't know why that one is horribly distorted though. There's also lots of SF, which I bet is mostly from here.

There is a link on their home page to the LV main page - I'm not sure why they've clipped out the LV disclaimer and voice credits for some books (mostly the solos) but the DR of "Dorian" has the full DP and cast list on the main page.

k5hsj wrote:Well, here's one narrator who has complained in the comments section of his recordings, and if more of those whose recordings have been used would do so, maybe the Audiobooks Unleashed owner would do the right thing!

Winston

Hey, the owner of the channel here. First, the comment you mentioned is longer than that, and I said there I would look into adding a link in the description. I've started doing that, but the channel has 300+ videos, plus another 200+ that I'm migrating from a similar channel (Sci-Fi Audiobooks Unleashed), and I have a lot of stuff on my plate, so bear with me there. I looked into YouTube's "credit" function but that won't work apparently. That being said, the material is in the public domain. I don't have to credit anyone, period. I have a lot of respect for your work here and even though there was some passive aggressive hostility in your comment on the channel, I didn't mind. But everytime you made the same comment, it just annoyed me, and by the fourth I was looking for the block button. There is no need for any hostility here, I just didn't think people that release recordings into the public domain would care, and I'm a minimalist. I edit the audio based on what I think the listeners would prefer, and write the descriptions the same way. I invest a lot of time and effort into this. I'm not a bad guy and am not looking to hurt or take advantage of anyone. Chill.

Everything on the channel, as of right now, is from Librivox.

"the DR of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and Bob Neufeld's reading of "Treasure Island" - I don't know why that one is horribly distorted though.

Not sure what DR means, but Treasure Island is from Mark F. Smith; I'm not sure why you say it is horribly distorted. That worries me, because I can't hear any distortion on my end.

audiobooksunleashed wrote: There is no need for any hostility here, I just didn't think people that release recordings into the public domain would care, and I'm a minimalist.

Personally, I think it's OK for you to edit out the intro because, as you say, they're released into the PD. I haven't looked at your stuff on YouTube, but I'd think credit in the description (of the reader and LibriVox) would be nice. Not required, but nice.

"the DR of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and Bob Neufeld's reading of "Treasure Island" - I don't know why that one is horribly distorted though.

Not sure what DR means, but Treasure Island is from Mark F. Smith; I'm not sure why you say it is horribly distorted. That worries me, because I can't hear any distortion on my end.

DR means "dramatic reading".

R of "Dorian" has the full DP and cast list on the main page.

Huh?

I'll interpret. "The Dramatic Reading of "Dorian" has the full Dramatis Personae (cast list - perhaps she's referring to the audio cast list here) and cast list on the main page."

audiobooksunleashed wrote: There is no need for any hostility here, I just didn't think people that release recordings into the public domain would care, and I'm a minimalist.

Personally, I think it's OK for you to edit out the intro because, as you say, they're released into the PD. I haven't looked at your stuff on YouTube, but I'd think credit in the description (of the reader and LibriVox) would be nice. Not required, but nice.

A big part of the reason I edit the intro is because I want people to get right into the story, and in some books there is the whole "This is a Librivox recording..." every 10 minutes (every chapter). It can be annoying and people have very short attention spans these days. But yea, I'm adding a "Read by" with a link the author's librivox profile in the descriptions.

R of "Dorian" has the full DP and cast list on the main page.

Huh?

I'll interpret. "The Dramatic Reading of "Dorian" has the full Dramatis Personae (cast list - perhaps she's referring to the audio cast list here) and cast list on the main page."

I thought something along those lines, but the reading of Dorian I have is a solo by Bob Neufeld, thus my confussion.

I'm not a youtube user.
I do accept that all aspects of our files are PD . We don't make CDs or videos or apps so when others provide this service I don't object at all , especially if they acknowledge the source , we need readers.
Everything we produce is the product of team work by volunteers - and I don't expect you to run a movies type list of credits at the end . And whoever expands our covers horizontally is allowed to even if every time I see how hideous they look in google images I wish they wouldn't. But PD is PD.

Speaking for myself, it doesn't bother me. After all, I'm using a pseudonym anyway.

There's a dual language poetry website (Portuguese and English languages poetry) that has picked up a lot of LibriVox poetry and such. That site also cuts out everything but the title, author, and poem. But I'm just pleased that quite a few of the Australian poems of Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, and to a lesser extent, CJ Dennis, are apparently quite popular with their listeners there.

Don't get me wrong, I respect others' various and possibly different opinions on this. It's just that, for me, it's about spreading the message of Australian poetry and literature.

kayray wrote:I don't know if any of my recordings are up there, but either way I think it's cool to have another way for people to find and enjoy our books -- credited or not.

If any of my recordings ARE up there, it would be an easy way for non-techy friends and relations to listen to them, and if they were credited I might be able to find them!

There is, actually, The Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse. Just added a "Read by: Kara Shallenberg (https://librivox.org/reader/19)" to the description. Listening to it now, I think I might have shifted the pitch slightly up, though now I'm not sure it was such a good idea. I did a lot of experimenting with slightly adjusting pitches, equalization, volume and things like that, so please take no offense to it.

You have three of mine up. "Maria Theresa" gained quite a bit of weight when her cover got horizontilized, poor thing, and I was turned into a man, which was an interesting experience for me.

For my "Normans in European History" and "Philip Augustus" you made new covers and the "Normans" cover is especially handsome (of course the one by our cover artists was also wonderful). I got to stay a woman for these last two.

Pam

"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."

You have three of mine up. "Maria Theresa" gained quite a bit of weight when her cover got horizontilized, poor thing,

I think when I uploaded that the Librivox cover wasn't even up yet. Interesting picture used on Librivox, hadn't seen it before. Wonder if that is her at a younger age? Or maybe just more a more flatering painting?

and I was turned into a man, which was an interesting experience for me.

I remember you commenting on the video when it was in the History Audiobooks channel, which I decided to merge with this one. Don't think it's THAT low of a pitch, but again, I did a lot of experimenting and things don't always turn out as well as I hoped. Like even now, I just finished editing Mark F. Smith's Tarzan of the Apes. I removed the background noise, but then these "residual" noises show up. Long story short, after a few hours of working on it I'm not sure the audio quality is better or worse. But I might as well upload my version, as the original is already out there anyway.

I'll add a "Read by" to your books tonight. Really need to improve on my history collection and you do good work on it, so I'll probably upload a lot more by you in the future.